Chapter Text
Over one month later, Teresa was coming back home on a late Friday night, after a whole week spent in San Francisco at a conference between heads of departments of different CBI offices; like every weekend, her eyes fell on Jane’s windows as soon as she left the taxy, and like almost every weekend, she found the blinds closed and the lights turned off. After their “fight” he had come back from Los Angeles only once, and for the whole two days, he had avoided her like the plague, changing his routine so drastically that she hadn’t even been able to get a glimpse of him.
Shaking her head, she entered the building, and tiredly she went back to her own apartment. Once inside, she didn’t bother to bring the suitcase in her room, abandoning it in the entrance, and started to undress, leaving the clothes where they fell; half-naked, she skimmed over the surfaces of her apartment, the dark wood Jane had insisted she was supposed to keep, and wondered how it was possible that things had changed so much in so little time. When she had first moved in, she had loved the place, found it perfect; now, as much as she was happy to be back, those walls didn’t feel like “home” any longer. It was just a house- one she wasn’t so sure that could make her as happy as she had dreamed before.
Without getting dressed, she went to sit on the couch, and hugging her knees she stared at the sheets of paper on the coffee table; they had been there since she had found them in front of her door, and she hadn’t been able to move them, nor call anyone from Jane’s list of contractors. She knew it was stupid, because, unlike him, they were professionals and because she trusted his judgment, but having someone working on her kitchen who wasn’t him, it felt wrong. Besides, she wasn’t so sure she still wanted to actually get her kitchen done.
She sighed as she undid the ponytail, her raven hair cascading on her shoulders and her chest in soft, natural waves. Closing her eyes, she touched her breastbone, on the point where her heart was, and wondered if that pain she felt whenever she thought of him was eventually going to disappear. She shook her head, fighting back tears, fearing that Jane’s memory would never abandon her. There was always something, even small things, that kept brining her back to him. Like in San Francisco, when a guy she was talking to had taken a turquoise cup and started drinking tea, and she had almost had a nervous breakdown there and then. All because he had gotten under her skin, in her heart, her mind.
She was so lost in her thoughts of him, that she hadn’t even noticed that she had taken her phone, but as soon as she understood what her subconscious was asking her to do, she called herself names. It was stupid: she didn’t even have his number, because since they had met, all she had to do when she wanted to talk with him had been knock at the door next to hers.
And now… Now, Patrick Jane wasn’t the guy next door any longer.
Slightly annoyed with herself, she threw the phone on the couch, and wondered what she thought she was doing. Yes, theoretically speaking, she did know where he was working. But even if she had decided to call the LAPD, and even if he had wanted to talk with her, what did she think she was going to tell him anyway?
I just wanted to tell you that, well, I miss you.
Jane, I know I didn’t show it enough, but, you are always in my mind.
Please, come back here. To me.
But she knew she couldn’t. Yes, there was the matter of her pride, and that she still didn’t know where they stood, but she still thought it wasn’t fair towards him; it had taken Jane more than two years to get over the guilt of his family’s passing, she couldn’t bring him back when he was finally starting living again, when he was doing what he had always been great at, in a way that didn’t make him feel like a fraud. She couldn’t stop him now, get him back there with her and risk that he would fall again in the tunnel of depression and guilt he had spiraled into for too long.
He had been able to move on. She wasn’t so sure she could say the same about herself. It wasn’t just the fact that she couldn’t move past her brief relationship with Jane; it was the fact that even if she had gotten promoted, nothing had changed for her. She was still Teresa, daughter of an alcoholic with the dead mother, and she was still a woman in a male-dominated world, still under-considered, still the object of evil and mean gossip. Only, now she worked mostly in an office, she didn’t work cases that much and yes, her pay was better, but the hours wore worse and the burocracy was killing her.
So, yeah- getting promoted had meant turning into a bureaucrat, a sad, tired bureaucrat who needed to take a long, warm, bubble bath and then sleep for as long as possible.
Just few more years. She thought, eyeing from afar the alcohol cabinet. Then you’ll be able to retire and buy an house by the sea and spend there the rest of your days. Or maybe, you could move back to Chicago, get your old home back and show everyone who you’ve turned into.
But as much as she had always craved those things, now she believed them unimportant and didn’t feel free or relieved by the possibility of either of those futures: because all she wanted was to have a turquoise cup on her table once again, filled with hot tea.
The feeling persisted on the next day; she woke up without any energy, nor the will to get any work done despite knowing she had to. She just couldn’t get anything started, it was too quiet. She had despised Jane’s continuous hammering, and yet in the last few weeks she had not gotten anything done on the weekend because she had come to need the noise to concentrate.
She groaned, arranged her hair in a messy ponytail and put on her running gear, hoping that the fresh morning air could help her; besides, she needed the exercise, after weeks spent sitting in her office or at conferences.
She started to run, mindlessly, and without really noticing, she got to the flea market where she and Jane had gone that one time. She stopped running, with a small smile on her face, and walked across the different vendors, between the crowded space, trying to remember faces and names that Jane had introduced her to that Saturday.
Wondering here and there, she reached the nice lady who sold vintage clothes, and without being aware of it, she started looking through the racks for the red dress. The nice lady was busy talking with some costumers, schoolgirls who were looking at dresses probably for prom, and the cop decided that, if she could still look for her dream dress on her own. After all, how hard could it be to find what she was looking for? And yet, as much as she rummaged through the gowns, the dresses and the jackets and coats, she couldn’t find it.
“Can I help you with anything?” The nice lady said, appearing at Teresa’s back like from thin air and making the cop jump. Teresa closed her eyes, a hand on her heart to calm her raging heartbeat.
“Uhm…” Teresa started, at loss of words; but the woman’s smile was kind and reassuring, and soon she started to talk, suddenly at easy. “Last month I came here with a friend.” Teresa said, blushing. “He was talking with the guy from the stand next to yours, about some lamps.”
The nice lady nodded, a strange light that Teresa couldn’t really explain appearing in her eyes. She guessed it wasn’t so strange, though; Jane was definitely the kind of man who left an impression on people, especially if they were females- it really didn’t matter if they could be his mother or even his grandmother.
“Oh, yes, the man with the blonde rebel curls.” The woman said, her eyes turned dreamy. Teresa lifted an eyebrow, now one hundred percent sure that that light in the woman’s eyes had indeed been caused by the memory of Jane’s appeal. “Such a handsome man. I saw him around here quite often.”
Teresa smiled, but a bit uneasy. Yes, she had already been in love with handsome guys who were front and center in the fantasies of other girls, but she had never been in the position of being believed to be the lucky girl to hold their hearts in her hands, like the lady seemed to imply with her looks. It made her blush like the Catholic Schoolgirl she hadn’t been in quite a long time, and she really didn’t know how to answer to that. What was she supposed to say, that she and Handsome had broken up? She wasn’t really in the mood. She knew women like that lady, and she didn’t feel like being patted on the back and pitied because a relationship was over. It definitely wasn’t her style.
“I don’t know if you remember, but you had a dress on display, it was red with white polka dots all over, halter style and with a white petticoat…” Teresa started, hopeful. Maybe the dress simply wasn’t there, who knew.
The lady nodded, her eyes wide open in recognition. Teresa was again hopeful: who knew, maybe… maybe there was still hope.
“Yes, I think I remember it… it was an original vintage, and yet it was in excellent condition, right?”
“Yes!” Teresa exclaimed, more and more hopeful by the second, but then, she saw that the lady saddened, and she understood that her little dream wasn’t going to get true.
“I’m so sorry, I sold it few weeks ago. But…” the woman said, looking through the ranks with expert eyes. “If you like the genre, I have something similar in black?”
But Teresa shook her head. “No, I was just… I just wanted to see if the red dress was still here, I guess.”
“You know,” the lady said, her eyes a bit sad, but wise and deep. “If you find something that you want, you have to hurry up, or you could lose them once and for all.”
Right, Teresa thought to herself as she said thank you and started to run back home. As the breeze hit her and reddened her fair skin, she shed few tears. She couldn’t understand why the dress had been that important, why she felt like she needed to have it. When she felt that the air was burning her lungs, she slowed down, and as she walked between the crowd, she saw blond, rebel curls in the distance. She got closer and closer, sure that it was Jane, that he was back and that she finally could make things all right between them, but a brunette approached him, kissing him on the neck, and when the man turned, Teresa realized that she didn’t know his face.
She closed her eyes and turned around, but on the way home, Teresa couldn’t forget the lady’s words, as she repeated them again and again in her mind like on autopilot.
If you find something that you want, you have to hurry up, or you could lose them once and for all.